Bard of Liberty

Professor Geraint H Jenkins was Chair and Research Director of the University of Wales Board of Celtic Studies until 2007. He is also an Honorary Fellow of the University of Wales, Swansea.

• 1. 'On the Banks of the Daw' 2. 'I was always pushing forward' 3. 'When he nobly for Liberty stood' 4. 'The Unparalleled Eventfulness of this Age' 5. '[He] is now a seller of seditious Books and will be planting Treason wherever he goes' 6. 'I have as much Cimbric patriotism as any man living' 7. 'I am what I am, and I most fervently thank God that I am what I am'

This lively and stimulating book gets to grip with the question of the political beliefs and actions of one of Wales's most controversial cultural icons: Edward Williams, Iolo Morganwg, the self-styled 'Bard of Liberty'. Revealing a profound knowledge and understanding of the vast and famously chaotic archive of Iolo's manuscripts held at the National Library of Wales, Professor Jenkins has produced here more than an analysis of Iolo's politics: this is effectively the first really detailed biography of the man, tracing his life from birth to death against the context of a rapidly changing world.